street roots
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doesn’t remember when exactly) when he
qualified for Supplemental Security Income,
a federal safety net program that provides
him a modest income of about $700 a <
month and health insurance. After two
decades of homelessness, Leone is in better
health and his battles with the voices have
subsided in their frequency and intensity.
The U.S., steeped in the Puritan work
ethic and ideals of rugged individualism, has
a strained relationship with giving taxpayer
money to people who don’t work. This
political current is older than the republic
itself and is present in a national
conversation over the future of two federal
disability programs: Supplemental Security
Income and Social Security Disability
Income. Both programs grant a modest
modicum of financial stability for millions of
people too banged up physically, or
otherwise, to work.
Almost everyone — including the
attorneys who help people get their
benefits, judges who determiné who’s
eligible and Congress, which oversees all of
it - agree that these programs have
problems. The number of people on both
programs has swelled, causing them to
become financially strained. There is a huge
backlog of people applying for these
programs, and the means of determining,
who is eligible has been called into question.
Street Roots analyzed the numbers
behind these programs. Indeed, disability
roles have risen, and the backlog of eases isr
a serious problem. But critics who contend
that it’s too easy to get a ticket to the
disability gravy train ignore real barriers
people face arid the sometimes arbitrary
way decisions are made. They also ignore
the fact that it’s become harder to get
disability over the years, not easier. Stuck in
March 14, 2014
benefits, putting financial strains on the
programs. The fund for SSD benefits could
be exhausted as soon as 2016.
The rise in claims has created a backlog.
In 2008, Congress turned its attention to
the problem, and the Social Security
Administration devoted more resources to
addressing the backlog. A report from the
Office of the Inspector General found that
the average processing time for claims
dropped from 514 days in 2008 to 353 days
| | about one year — in 2012.
But the backlog still isn’t resolved. In
2013, the ALJ’s union, the Association of
Administrative Law Judges, which didn’t' |
return a call seeking comment, sued the
Social Security Administration. Describing
the adjudication process of disability claims
as a “system in crisis,*’ the suit alleged that
the administration’s goal that judges clear
many to seek disability. Others suggest that
the area has a high population of homeless
people.
U.S. Rep. Earl Blumenauer, D-Portland,
calls the wait time for Portland’s office
“appalling” and the worst of any of the
administration’s regional offices.
Blumenauer says that processing these
applications require labor and resource,
which government agencies have been
starved of in recent years.
“There are a number of people who are
on a jihad to slash government services,”
says Blumenauer. Eligible disability
applicants (at least those with legitimate
claims) can spend years with little or no
medical treatment or income, says
Blumenauer. Some don’t live long enough to
claims benefits, he says.
s disability roles have risen, they’ve
attracted more attention - and much of
it has been negative. In January, 100 foririet
New York police officers, firefighters and
others were indicted for fraudulently
obtaining benefits after some posted
pictures of themselves on Facebook riding
motorcycles, fishing, playing basketball,
smiling and looking not so disabled.
In 2013, NPR ran a series on the increase
of the nation's disability roles. The series
was criticized for being one-sided and
misleading by antipoverty and disability
rights groups. The television news show 60
Minutes produced a similar segment that
ran shortly before trie U.S. Senate held a
hearing examining the increase in disability
rbles and the backlog. The hearing focused
a
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“’ffiS'díCa’íty 'ft^ i’te iyeopte.'Pórtíáhcl has much
at stake on the issue: The city carries a
backlog of cases néarly twice as high as the
national average.
he fédéral government provides two
safety net programs that proride cash
payments to individuals who are unable to
work because of a disability. Supplemental
Security Income (SSI) was created in 1972
as part of s welfare reform effort that
brought state-administered programs for the
disabled under federal purview. Social
Security Disability Insurance (SSD) was
created in 1956, It’s for individuals who have
a work history and have paid taxes into the
Spçial Security trust fund, which pays out
the program’s benefits.
Individuals apply for these benefits
through state offices. If they’re denied (the
average allowance rate for initial claims over
the last five years is 36 percent), the
applicant can take their case before an
administrative law judge (ALJ), Social
Security Administration employees tasked. •
with reviewing claims.
When a disability applicant wins a case,
they are often paid back benefits for the
time they spent waiting on their appeal.
Most applicants are represented by lawyers
or nori-lawyer advocates, who get paid with a
cut of the back benefits.
Over the last decade, the number of
claims to both programs has ballooned.
Between 2003 and 2013, the number of
claims nationwide rose 18 percent to over 3
million, according to an analysis of Social
Security Administration data byStreet
Roots. The growth is typically attributed to
aging baby boomers becoming more
disability prone and the lingering effects of
the recession. As of January, a record 16.5 ;
million people receive either SSI or SSD
“By that time I was just so banged up, I
was horizontal the rest of the week
recuperating,” says Desere. “So it was clear
to. me that I couldn’t work.” 5
In 2011", unable to make rent, she moved
out of the apartment she had been living in
for 25 years, beginning a period of on-and-off
homelessness. She has stayed with friends
and family and, at other times, has lived in a
2003 Toyota Camry a departed friend left
her. In September, she moved into a .
subsidized apartment that she worries she
will lose. Throughout this process, she’s had
no income,
Even if she does get benefits, she owes
debts to family, frierids, her doctor and the
IRS. Even with the benefits, she will be at
the poverty level for the rest of her life — a
situation she would still be grateful for.
“I’ve begged, borrowed and not stolen
just to survive,” says Desere, who spends
most of the dày lying down in her apartment
with a pillow between her legs to keep thè
pressure off her back.
S
esere knows this purgatory.
500 to 700 cases a year amounts to an
“I already lost, for all intents and
illegal and unreasonable burden.
purposes, my life, except for my human
“When the goals are too high, the easy
body,” say Desere; who doesri’t want her
way out is to pay trie case,” RandaU Frye,
real name used because she has had a claim
president of the Association of
open since 2011.
Administrative Law Judges and a judge in
Desere’s pain pills make her drowsy and
Charlotte, N.C., told The Associated Press.
she drinks caffeine to stay awake. When
“Paying the case is a decision that might be
reached by phone, Desere was preparing to
three pages long. When you deny benefits,
drive to Portland the
it’s usually a 15- or
next day and stand
20-page denial that
before a judge who
takes a lot more time
Eligible disability applicants will make a decision
and effort.”
that will likely
A 2013 report from (at least those w ith
the Office of the
legitim ate claims) can spend determine her
material well being
Inspector General
years w ith little or no
for the re st of her
supports this claim;
medical treatment or
life.
finding a direct
Desere was born
relationship between
Income^ says O X Bep® Earl
with scoliosis. In
judges who clear
Blumenauer, D-Portland,
1987, a truck cut her
cases quickly and
Some donft lire long enough off, causing her to
their likelihood of
to claims benefits, he says»
smash into an
approving benefits.
embankment. After
All these new
that, she was in a
claims have created a
custom-made body
backlog. The median
cast for mbnths and was in and out of
case backlog for the 1.70 hearing offices
physical therapy. She worked as a waitress,
spread throughout the country is 4,967. For
spending long days on her feet, which
the Seattle office, there are 5,791 cases
strained her back. She later took a series of
waiting a decision. In Portland, it’s 8,008
jobs as a caregiver for the elderly, all of
cases-.
which she says further damaged her back.
No one is really quite sure why Portland
has such a bad backlog. Some speculate that She remembers times when clients would
collapse, throwing all their weight on her.
the decline in timber industries has driven
D
claim benefits, while colluding with doctors
arid judges to get their claims approved.
Shortly before the hearing, Sen. Tom
Coburn, an arch-conservative from
Oklahoma, released a report thatfourid an
alarming rate of benefits have been awarded
with questionable evidence. His report also
noted that some judges have astronomically
high allowance rates, sometimes as high as
90 percent.
But Coburn’s report left out two |
important facts. By the numbers, it is
actually harder to get on disability today
than in years past. According to a data
analysis by Street Roots, the average
allowance at the initial claim level, in 2008
was 38 percent. In 2013, it was 35 percent.
The number of people approved at the
hearing level has also been in decline. In
2005, 72 percent of decisions in hearing
offices resulted in an award Pf benefits.
According to an analysis of data, that
number dropped to 54 percent in fiscal year
2013.
And while some judges’have very high
allowance-rates, Cobum left out that some
judges have dismally low approval rates,
sometimes as low às 20 or even 10 percerit.
The wide discrepancy highlights just how •
capricious the decision to award or deny ;
benefits can be and how a judge’sbias can
enter their decision.
Just ask Omar Zuber.
Suffering from severe agoraphobia, Zuber,
> 40, thought that the only way he’d leave his ‘
parent’s-house in Gresham w asin a body
bag. He applied for disability and had his
parents attend his hearing. Zuber called in
on speaker phone. Zuber describes the
judge as being antagonistic, cutting him off
and suggesting his paperwork was fake. The
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